Carron Bridge (Carron Bridge)

This article is about Carron Bridge across the River Carron at Carron Bridge in the Campsie Fells.
For other Carron Bridges, see Carron Bridge.

The Brick arch is closer

The 'old' Carron Bridge at Carron Bridge lies a little upstream from the New Carron Bridge, and only carries the minor road across the hills to Kilsyth. However, that doesn't mean that it is without interest. At first glance, the bridge is a typical 18th Century style twin arch crossing, but closer inspection reveals engineers bricks under the larger arch, so what is going on?

The bridge originally dates back to 1695, but was substantially rebuilt a century later, presumably after flood damage. This is the bridge outline we see today, with a smaller arch on the north side of the river, and the roadway climbing across the structure to reach the higher south bank. The roadway is only single track, without pavements, but the road is very quiet! Another flood caused further damage a little over a century ago, and so in 1907 the southern arch was rebuilt, this time using the dark engineers bricks to rebuild the arch, but stone for the superstructure and facings, making it difficult to work out quite how much damage had been caused.

The upstream side of the bridge has a substantial stone, and presumably old, cutwater on the central pier which sits in the river bed. There is also a large concrete buttress to the abutment on the north bank, which seems to have been added to strengthen a weakness, with a smaller buttress on the opposite side. The older, smaller arch also has a series of iron clamps to help strengthen the structure, although the dates of this work is uncertain.

It seems possible that prior to the construction of the New Carron Bridge, this old bridge carried the main road between Fintry and Denny. Old Maps certainly show a loop from the old bridge westwards along the riverbank to meet the modern B818 further upstream, and modern maps also show a possible old road line across Tarduff Hill on the southern side of the river.